London

Welcome to London. A long, long queue for immigration as always, but at least it gives you the chance to chat with others from all sorts of places around the world. Not unexpectedly the skies were grey and the temperature on the chilly side. We picked up our hire car and negotiated the horrendous road system around Heathrow onto the ring road only to encounter peak hour traffic. Crawling along at 5 miles an hour trying to get to the hotel was just what we needed after a 14 hour flight from Singapore!

Still, it was good to get out of town and some of the way to our destination on the first day. The bed for the night was very welcome and we had our first pub meal of the trip at The Swan in Woburn Sands, near to Woburn Abbey. The next day we drove to Leeds, this time checking into a pub in the delightfully named Woodlestone village. The room was in a converted stable with walls nearly a metre thick. A second morning with a full English breakfast - not conducive to losing weight I fear...